This scientific demonstration so stirred the doctors and clergy that they had my notices for a second lecture pulled down, and refused me a hearing in their halls and churches.  This circumstance is cited simply to show the opposition which Christian Science encountered a quarter-century ago, as contrasted with its present welcome into the sickroom.

Many were the desperate cases I instantly healed, “without money and without price,” and in most instances without even an acknowledgment of the benefit.

A TRUE MAN

My last marriage was with Asa Gilbert Eddy, and was a blessed and spiritual union, solemnized at Lynn, Massachusetts, by the Rev. Samuel Barrett Stewart, in the year 1877.  Dr. Eddy was the first student publicly to announce himself a Christian Scientist, and place these symbolic words on his office sign.  He forsook all to follow in this line of light.  He was the first organizer of a Christian Science Sunday School, which he superintended.  He also taught a special Bible-class; and he lectured so ably on Scriptural topics that clergymen of other denominations listened to him with deep interest.  He was remarkably successful in Mind-healing, and untiring in his chosen work.  In 1882 he passed away, with a smile of peace and love resting on his serene countenance.  “Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright:  for the end of that man is peace.” (Psalms xxxvii. 37.)

COLLEGE AND CHURCH

In 1867 I introduced the first purely metaphysical system of healing since the apostolic days.  I began by teaching one student Christian Science Mind-healing.  From this seed grew the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in Boston, chartered in 1881.  No charter was granted for similar purposes after 1883.  It is the only College, hitherto, for teaching the pathology of spiritual power, alias the Science of Mind-healing.

My husband, Asa G. Eddy, taught two terms in my College.  After I gave up teaching, my adopted son, Ebenezer J. Foster-Eddy, a graduate of the Hahneman Medical College of Philadelphia, and who also received a certificate from Dr. W.W.  Keen’s (allopathic) Philadelphia School of Anatomy and Surgery,—­having renounced his material method of practice and embraced the teachings of Christian Science, taught the Primary, Normal, and Obstetric class one term.  Gen. Erastus N. Bates taught one Primary class, in 1889, after which I judged it best to close the institution.  These students of mine were the only assistant teachers in the College.

The first Christian Scientist Association was organized by myself and six of my students in 1876, on the Centennial Day of our nation’s freedom.  At a meeting of the Christian Scientist Association, on April 12, 1879, it was voted to organize a church to commemorate the words and works of our Master, a Mind-healing church, without a creed, to be called the Church of Christ, Scientist, the first such church ever organized.  The charter for this church was obtained in June, 1879,[D] and during the same month the members, twenty-six in number, extended a call to me to become their pastor.  I accepted the call, and was ordained in 1881, though I had preached five years before being ordained.